As promised we have the unique pleasure of our first guest post from one of my heroes. A New York football legend if you will and a saint of the only church I attend on 3rd Ave between 11th and 12th Streets. At his request we have hidden his identity to protect the innocent. He took some time out from his busy schedule to break down the situation at Newcastle in terms you can understand. Hopefully this won’t be his last contribution to your football knowledge.

Save Newcastle United!

Mike Ashley has the scorn of the Geordies and is the root problem of all that is wrong with the club! Well, so say members of the Toon Army as they parade their angst with their “Cockney MAFIA out!” banner during a recent home loss to Hull City. Even Magpie, the Toon mascot, was photographed holding a poster stating, “No more Geordie cash for Ashley!” Things certainly are off the charts north of Hadrian’s Wall.

But is Mike Ashley really to blame for this mess or is he just misguided lad with too much money?

Billionaire Mike Ashley isn’t really a Cockney but he was born in Buckinghamshire and ranks 54th in the Sunday Times Rich List. Ashley has loved his football since attending the World Cup in Mexico in 1986 and was attracted to Newcastle by the myth that Toon fans were the best fans in football. In fact, Ashley believes that the fans are Newcastle United’s best asset. Ashley paid ₤134 million for the club and paid another ₤110 million just to reduce the debt. That’s right, reduce the debt.

Things were wrong at Newcastle United BEFORE Mike Ashley won the scorn of all illiterate Toon fans. Toon? Well, that’s the Geordie pronunciation of the word “town!” To really look into this situation, we really need to go back in time to see where things went wrong.

Newcastle United was formed in 1892 with the merger of Newcastle East End and Newcastle West End, rivals in the Northern League, as Newcastle West End had fallen into financial difficulties. Success was rapid for Newcastle United and they won their first league title in 1904/05 followed by more league titles in 1906-07 and 1908/09. The FA Cup followed in 1909/10. Success along with the lack of transportation and lack of nearby competition gave Newcastle United a strong base for fans. Sadly, Newcastle United would win the league title just once more, in 1926/27, but the FA Cup brought success on the club with victories in 1923/24, 1931/32, 1950/51, 1951/52 and 1954/55. The brilliant and storied history of success at St. James’ Park was over after 1955 and no domestic silverware would be won unless you count the Texaco Cup.

Still, even without silverware there was little competition for fans. The closest rivals are Sunderland, a mere ten miles away, and the Tyne-Wear derbies are heated events that pit city against city for the bragging rights of the county. Most southerners will look at Middlesbrough as a local for Newcastle thanks to the lack of teams “up norf” but Middlesbrough plays a hefty 34 miles away and is not considered local!

With a huge fan base, surely Newcastle would have been primed for success both fiscally and on the pitch. There is no doubt that the fans let their feelings known. The highest attendance in Newcastle history is 68,386 for the match against Chelsea in 1930. Why did so many Geordies show up for this one match? The fans showed up in huge numbers to welcome their former hero Hughie Gallacher who was the club’s most prolific scorer (143 goals in 174 games) but had been sold to Chelsea! Queue the mass hysteria and attendance. In fact, many thousands of fans were unable to get inside the stadium and were locked outside.

Could this event have shaped the club’s managerial policy into pleasing the fans at all costs? Since 1930, only two managers have had tenures of ten years or more; Stan Seymour and Joe Harvey, who departed in 1975. Since Joe’s departure, Newcastle have had 16 managers including such high profile figures as Osvaldo Ardiles, Kevin Keegan (twice), Kenny Dalglish, Ruud Gullit and Sir Bobby Robson. In fact, Newcastle is already on their sixth manager this century. This must-win to appease the fans who still believe the club is massive is finally killing the club in this period of high financial risk.

Run the club by appeasing the fans? Mike Ashley has certainly tried! In September last year, Ashley tried to wear his Alan Smith number 17 Newcastle shirt in the corporate box at Sunderland without permission to show the fans his true colours. After being denied, he sat in the away end and tried to buy all of the fellow “fans” a pint of lager at half-time. These gimmicks haven’t worked for him as they were not complimented by success on the pitch and the fans now want the “outsider” gone.

For his part, Ashley has been able to make himself an easy target for the fans by becoming a PR nightmare and embarrassing the club. From partying in New York and buying 175 bottles of Crystal champagne, to snubbing Dubai investors, who had low-balled his anticipated selling price, by missing a scheduled meeting with them to drink with Dennis Wise, his Director of Football, in the nearby Bahri Bar, he’s played his part.

The club is still in debt and still owes millions on transfer fees while current commercial deals were paid up front and spent before Ashley bought the club. Ashley bought a dog with fleas and did everything to keep the club’s number one asset happy; the fans.

Mike Ashley has now hired London-based Seymour Pierce to sell the club and wants an unreasonable figure of ₤480 million. This is far more than the Dubai investors are willing to pay although there is a Nigerian outfit out there willing to buy the club. Let’s hope Ashley pays attention to their needs of his initial wiring of money to a bank account in Abuja.

Until the fans step away from this “massive club” demand, Newcastle will continue with quick fixes that will never work. Kevin Keegan was never going to be the answer and neither will Alan Shearer. A new owner is obviously needed but the owner must place the fans second to the club before embarking on the business of finding the right manager who knows which players he needs to make the club tick. The club must break tradition and think long-term.

The debacle at Newcastle United continues to boggle the mind. It’s nothing but a clusterfuck from owner Mike Ashley down to the fans who continue to drive away potential club buyers and managers with their rabid, bloodthirsty rantings about King Kev and their non-existent history. We’ll have an in-depth look at the club from a guest writer who is a football legend in his own right. Before we do that, let’s catch up on the latest haps from the “very big club”.

Ashley, realizing that he’s cruising for a lynching, has been trying to find a buyer for Newcastle. However he insists on selling at over £400million GBP. He had no luck in the Middle East and things were looking rather bleak until the Nigerians showed up. The latest rumored buyer is a Nigerian company called NVA Management.

We used our Abuja sources to track down the introductory communication from NVA to Mike Ashley and the trillions of Newcastle supporters expressing their interest in purchasing the team.

From: Prince Chris Nathaniel

Dear My Most Best Sincerity Friends,

I am fine today and how are you? I hope this letter will find you in the best of health. I am Prince Chris Nathaniel, the Chairman of the “Contract Award Committee”, of the “NVA Management (NVA)”, a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). NVA Management (NVA) was set up by the late Head of State, General Sani Abacha who died on 18th June 1998, to manage the excess revenue accruing from the sales of Petroleum and its allied products as a domestic increase in the petroleum products to develop the communities in the Niger Delta Oil producing areas. The estimated annual revenue for 1999 was $45 Billion US Dollars Ref. FMF A26 Unit 3B Paragraph “D” of the Auditor General of the Federal Republic of Nigeria Report of Nov. 1999 on estimated revenue.

I am the Chairman of the Contract Award Committee, and my committee is solely responsible for awaiting and paying of contracts on behalf of the Federal Government of Nigeria. My Committee awarded Contracts to foreign contractors for Drilling and Ecological Matters in the oil producing areas of Niger Delta. We are now in expansion to Premiership League football and are in heavy negotiations for the biggest team in all of Tyneside called Newcastle United. We overshot the contract sum by £13,485,000.00. We have paid His Excellency Mike Ashley of Buckinghamshire £400million and withholding the balance of £13,485,000.00. But, because of the existence of some of the domestic laws forbidding civil servants in Nigeria from opening, operating and maintaining foreign accounts, we do not have the expertise to transfer this balance of fund to a foreign account.

However, this balance of £13,485,000.00 has been secured in form of Credit/Payment to a foreign contractor, hence we wish to transfer into every Newcastle supporter bank account as the beneficiary of the fund. We have also arrived at a conclusion that you will be given 20% of the total sum transferred as our foreign partner, while 5% will be reserved for incidental expenses that both parties will incur in the course of actualizing this transaction, and the balance of 75% will be kept for the committee members. This balance will be paying to every Newcastle supporter who helps us complete the transaction.

If you know that you will be capable of helping us actualize this transaction, you should send to me immediately the details of your bank particulars or open a new bank account where we can transfer the money £13,485,000.00, which you will be holding in trust for us until we come to your country for our share. Your nature of business does not matter in this transaction. The required details includes your company’s name, address, your private personal telephone/fax numbers, your full name and address, including your complete bank details where the transferred fund will be routed by the Apex Bank.

Note that this transaction is expected to be actualized within 21 working days from the day the required details are forwarded to the Federal Ministry of Finance who will approve the needed foreign exchange control allocation for the release of this money to your account. Please, treat this as top secret. You should contact me urgently.

Thanks for your cooperation.

Yours faithfully,
Prince Chris Nathaniel

This is by far the best offer Ashley will ever receive. If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll give up his details and encourage every true Barcode fan to do the same. Soon they will be delivered from evil and into Highlife heaven by a prince. Imagine Fela Kuti blasting from the speakers of St. James Park while the strike force of Obafemi Martins and Ade Akinbiyi strike fear into the hearts of Gareth Southgate and Gary Megson. That’s straight juju right there.

All praise due to 419eater.com.

And so continues the shit show that is Newcastle United. In one week, owner Mike Ashley managed to lose manager and club legend Kevin “King Kev” Keegan and turn the entire fan base against him. There’s nothing worse than having legions of pasty, shirtless, middle aged men turn against you. Well they could also be illiterate and end up “boycoutting” the club. You would think that Ashley would be spending his time getting the club’s affairs in order but don’t forget that we are talking about an owner and a club that embraces mediocrity and delusions of grandeur.

While the club and Keegan fought over whether he resigned or was canned, Ashley took off in a private jet and went on a $216, 000 bender at Pink Elephant in New York.

[Ashley] and three other men, including one man named only as PK, downed an amazing 175 bottles of Cristal Champagne — the club’s entire stock.

They also necked 16 bottles of Dom Perignon, 29 of PJ Fleur Rose and three of Grey Goose Vodka.

Onlookers in the club on Wednesday night said Ashley was “slaughtered” and soaked from head to foot in Champagne as he sprayed £450 bottles of Cristal over his pals and handed out drinks and bottles to scantily-clad girls — getting some to pour booze into his mouth.

The mammoth bar bill included a £30,000 tip to waitresses and a four-figure tip to security. Ashley started off by ordering ten bottles of Cristal. But as the booze flowed he ordered 100 More — at a cost of nearly £43,000.

One onlooker at the run-down looking club said: “Ashley was slaughtered — soaked from head to foot in Champagne and slurring his words.

“He kept spraying Champagne over himself and his friends, and he kept ordering more and more bottles of Cristal — handing them out randomly to his friends, girls standing nearby and nearby tables.

He ended up “staggering out with his arms around two much younger, pretty girls.”

Nothing says all is well like making it rain with champagne. It’s only a matter of time until we hear about a sex boat in the North Sea. If Daunte Culpepper was smart, he’d take the sex boat business abroad and make some ends since he’s giving up on football.

Photo courtesy of The Sun